300 stuck in passage trying to flee Gaza

Mahmoud Abdelbari huddled inside a grimy concrete border passage on Monday, caught in a no man’s land between dangerous Gaza and a shuttered exit to Israel.

He was among 300 Gaza Strip residents, mainly with ties to the vanquished Fatah movement, who have spent days here trying to leave for the West Bank. But that requires passing through Israel, and the crossing has been closed since the Islamic militant group Hamas took sole control of Gaza and its 1.5 million residents after bloody street fighting last week.

Those in this enclosure, trapped between armed Hamas fighters and Israeli border guards, were low on food and water. For days, an air of desperation has filled the trash-strewn passage, where the Gazans have slept on scraps of wood and made frantic phone calls seeking help from Palestinian officials to intervene with Israel.

Most worried they might be caught in crossfire between the Palestinian fighters and the Israeli troops. On Monday evening, they indeed proved to be sitting ducks.

An unidentified Palestinian gunman lobbed a grenade and sprayed gunfire inside the passage, commonly referred to as a tunnel, toward Israeli troops, an Israeli military spokeswoman said. The troops returned fire, and at least one of the waiting Palestinians was killed and 17 others injured in the exchange. There were conflicting reports about whether the victims were hit by Israeli or Palestinian fire.

A spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, a Palestinian militant group separate from Hamas, said two of its men had opened fire on Israeli soldiers at Erez and that the Israelis fired back, hitting the civilians, the Associated Press reported.

Hamas officials, meanwhile, have announced a prisoner amnesty and said Fatah members had nothing to fear despite days of fighting in which dozens of the latter were killed, including some dragged into the streets and shot.

With those events in mind, scores of Gaza residents trooped to the border crossing, the only official route between Gaza and Israel, only to end up stuck in the covered passage.

Though walled with concrete, the quarter-mile-long pedestrian way felt anything but safe to those seeking to flee, who gathered about midway, near a series of remote-controlled mechanical gates that lead to the Israeli side. Those distances left them well short of Israeli border guards and far from the Hamas guards posted at a checkpoint about half a mile south of the passage inside Gaza.

The Gazans sat along low, concrete ledges in the cheerless confines of the passageway, roughly the width of a narrow street, and spent much of the time comforting antsy children, working their cellphones and warding off the sensation of being easy targets. At the Palestinian end, the passage opens onto a parking lot and wide, scrubby fields, making it relatively easy for intruders to reach them.

It was not clear how Monday’s attackers arrived.

Despite the risks, those waiting here didn’t want to go home.

Some seeking to flee, like Abdelbari, a 24-year-old member of Fatah’s security force, said their party ties left them vulnerable to Hamas reprisals if they returned to their Gaza residences. Others said they simply wanted to start anew in the more prosperous West Bank, where Fatah remains strong and a parallel Palestinian government now competes with Hamas’ rule in Gaza.

“I am going to Abu Mazen,” Abdelbari said, referring to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah. “I want to work in his army.”

Umm Mohammed, 36, said early Monday that she had waited three days with her four children and husband, a former member of the Fatah-led security forces, but that Palestinian officials had done nothing to help get the border opened.

“We are here all night and day and there is shooting around us. We have no food,” she said. Then she covered her head in a scarf and sobbed.

Israel allowed 150 or so Gazans out soon after Hamas’ military takeover, but the border crossing has been shut since. Those who left then included senior Fatah officials, journalists and Palestinian rights activists who feared retribution if they remained.

The people in the border passage had apparently been allowed through a Hamas checkpoint. A Hamas guard at the checkpoint said he had since been instructed to prevent more people from fleeing Gaza.

Israel has sealed all its openings with Gaza, citing security concerns and saying that since Fatah was defeated, no one is left on the Palestinian side with whom to coordinate cross-border operations. Israel opposes Hamas because it calls for the Jewish state’s destruction.

Speaking before the tunnel attack, Israel’s justice minister, Daniel Friedmann, said Israel should allow the Gaza residents to flee to the West Bank if they pose no risk.

“Israel must [facilitate] their transfer, as long as those requesting refuge are not Hamas militants or those who endanger our security,” Friedmann said.

Israeli human rights organizations have called on Israel to reopen the border crossings with Gaza, including Erez and the crucial cargo portal at Karni, to prevent a humanitarian crisis.

“Closing Gaza’s borders hermetically will inflict irreparable harm on ... men, women and children who need to receive humanitarian goods and to enter and leave Gaza,” said Sari Bashi, director of the Gisha human rights advocacy group. “Gaza cannot function as a sealed entity.”

Bashi said 21 Gazans with urgent medical conditions awaited Israeli permission to leave for treatment in Israel.

The crossing at Karni has been closed since June 11, cutting off the supply of a wide range of merchandise from Israel, including food, and preventing farmers in Gaza from exporting tomatoes, peppers and other produce.

Staples such as flour, cooking oil and milk are disappearing from Gaza store shelves, and prices are rising.

On Monday, though, an Israeli fuel company resumed sales of gasoline to Gaza a day after announcing it was halting shipments. The company, Dor Alon, did not explain why it reversed course. Israel also allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross to ferry a shipment of first-aid supplies into Gaza through the Erez crossing.

Supplies of water and electricity from Israel have continued as normal.

For those seeking to leave Gaza, the Israeli border may not be the only barrier. Abbas appears reluctant to encourage a big wave of Gaza transplants to the West Bank. He and other party leaders have urged Fatah members in Gaza to stay put.

Abbas helped arrange Israeli permission for a dozen or so senior Fatah leaders to flee Friday after the fighting ended. Some have been staying at a luxury hotel in the West Bank city of Ramallah. On Monday, they shooed away reporters.

Other Fatah security officers were reported to have fled by sea to Egypt during the last round of fighting. The Rafah crossing, between Gaza and Egypt, has been closed since Fatah forces were routed, except for a few hours Monday to allow several dozen Palestinians to return to Gaza.

Some Gazans were still waiting on the Egyptian side of Rafah to return to Gaza. “It is better to die [in Gaza] than here,” said Moussa Abuel-Laban, a 55-year-old bookstore owner returning from a trip to Saudi Arabia. “I have my children and my job.”

Back at Erez, a former member of the Fatah-led security forces said he feared death if he returned to his home in the town of Khan Yunis.

“We don’t know where to go,” said the 37-year-old officer, who gave his name as Abu Ibrahim, as he waited early Monday with his wife and five children. “We have threats from this side and threats from that side, and nobody but God to help us.”

ellingwood@latimes.com

Special correspondent Abu Shammaleh reported from the Erez crossing and Times staff writer Ellingwood from Jerusalem. Special correspondents Maher Abukhater in Ramallah and Noha el Hennawy in Rafah, Egypt, contributed to this report.